Spy × Family


Spy × Family is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tatsuya Endo. The story follows a spy who has to "build a family" in order to execute a mission, not realizing that the girl he adopts as a daughter and the woman he agrees to be in a fake marriage with are a mind reader and an assassin respectively. It has been serialized biweekly for free on the Shōnen Jump+ application and website since March 25, 2019, with the chapters collected and published into tankōbon volumes by Shueisha. Viz Media has licensed the series for English release in North America.

Characters

Forger family

;Twilight
;Thorn Princess
;Anya Forger
;Bond

Others

;Damian Desmond
;Becky Blackbell
;Yuri Briar

Production

and his editor Shihei Lin have known each other for over ten years; Lin was his initial editor on his first serial Tista. When Lin was moved from the Jump Square editorial department to Shōnen Jump+, Endo happily followed and they began developing a new work. Spy × Family takes elements from three of Endo's Jump Square one-shots; "Rengoku no Ashe", "Ishi ni Usubeni, Tetsu ni Hoshi" and "I Spy". Lin said that its reception among the editorial department was so good that serialization was practically decided before the official meeting was even held.
Lin had Endo work as an assistant on Tatsuki Fujimoto's Fire Punch to gain experience. With Tista and Gekka Bijin both having a dark tone, Lin told Endo to give Spy × Family a more positive and cheerful one. The initial draft was given a working title of Spy Family written in Japanese. When deciding the final name, Endo came up with over 100 options, but they ultimately decided to use the same title but in English and with a "cross" in between, the latter influenced by Hunter × Hunter.
The editor said that he and Endo are always conscious of the line where violence, which is necessary in a spy manga, is given a pass for comedy's sake. Anya was inspired by the main character of "Rengoku no Ashe". Her extrasensory perception was decided early on, and Lin cited its use for comedic effect as one of the series' strengths. Lin said that the series has a broad readership among all ages and genders. He also cited Endo's clean art and ability to convey emotions as part of the manga's appeal.
Lin feels that the world and characters were firmly established as of volume two, and as such revealed that he and Endo would start to include longer narratives in the series.

Publication

Written and illustrated by Tetsuya Endo, Spy × Family has been serialized biweekly on the Shōnen Jump+ application and website since March 25, 2019. The chapters, which are released every other Monday, have been collected and published into tankōbon volumes by Shueisha. Shueisha also simultaneously publishes the series in English for free on the Manga Plus app and website. Volume 4 was slated to be released on May 1, 2020 but was delayed until May 13, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan.
Viz Media began publishing Spy × Family in English digitally on their website for free on September 22, 2019. They released the first volume in print in spring 2020.

Volume list

Chapters not yet in ''tankōbon'' format

These chapters have yet to be published in a tankōbon volume. They were serialized on Shōnen Jump+.
With the release of its second volume, Spy × Family had 800,000 copies in circulation, counting digital and physical sales.
The series took first place in the web manga category of the Tsugi ni Kuru Manga Awards 2019. In December 2019, Brutus magazine included Spy × Family on their "Most Dangerous Manga" list, which included works with the most "stimulating" and thought-provoking themes. Later that same month, Polygon included it on a list of the best comics of 2019. The 2020 edition of the Kono Manga ga Sugoi! guidebook named Spy × Family the best manga series for male readers. It came in first on Honya Club's Nationwide Bookstore Employees' Recommended Comics of 2020 list, compiled by surveying 1,100 professional bookstore employees in Japan. It also won the 4th Tsutaya Comic Taishō in 2020. Spy × Family was nominated for the 13th Manga Taishō, where it came in second place, the 44th Kodansha Manga Award, and the 24th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize.
In a positive review of the first 11 chapters, Antonio Mireles of The Fandom Post summed up Spy × Family as a great comedy about a dysfunctional family put into uncanny situations that never pan out as planned due to their unique personalities. He described the family setup of Loid as the straight man, Yor the "dumb character" and Anya the adorable child "that readers fall in love with," as the perfect recipe for a comedy. However, he felt the humor that comes from Yor being the dumb character was underutilized.
Comic Book Resources' Hannah Collins hailed the first volume as one of the best manga releases of 2020. She had strong praise for Endo's art; writing that "Action-comedy is no mean feat even in animated or live-action mediums. To pull it off so well in still images takes real artistic talent." The reviewer called the artist's range of facial expressions his secret weapon, which he deploys to win over the hearts and minds of readers; particularity with those of Anya, whom Collins said, "steals every page she appears on."
Morgana Santilli of The Beat stated that Spy × Family volume one does an excellent job balancing fun espionage action with heartwarming family moments. She called Endo's art "clean and appealing", which makes his parody of post-war Berlin easily recognizable. Santilli compared its comedy to that of From Eroica with Love, another Cold War-centric series.
In a review for Polygon, Julia Lee stated that Endo takes a premise that could make a "typical, corny, action manga" and uses it to make one of the funniest series out right now. Like the other reviewers, Lee praised Endo's art, writing that he has a knack for action scenes, as well as "expressive panels that really show you how the characters are feeling."